


Five Times Jack Held Kim's Hand and One Time He Couldn't

by leigh57



Category: 24
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-13
Updated: 2012-09-13
Packaged: 2017-11-14 04:08:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/511147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leigh57/pseuds/leigh57
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The title pretty much covers it;)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Jack Held Kim's Hand and One Time He Couldn't

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prompt fill for a post on LJ. I'm working gradually to get all the fic stored in various places moved over here!

In person, Santa looks . . . a lot _bigger_ (and a little more scary) than he does when she watches _Rudolph_ on TV or when Daddy reads _The Night Before Christmas_ before she goes to sleep.

Kim digs her fingernails under the collar of the new red velvet dress she picked out last week, scratching her neck where the lace rubs. The shiny black patent leather shoes with their sparkly silver buckles don’t feel as comfortable as they did in the store.

“And what do **YOU** want for Christmas, young man?” Santa’s voice echoes, booming toward the boy at the front of the line.

Nobody mentioned that Santa was so _loud_ either.

She edges closer to her dad, her face pressed against the soft cotton of his jeans.

“You okay, sweetheart? We can go home if you want.”

“But-” She’s undecided. “I want to get a Cinnabon!”

He laughs. “I’ll buy you a Cinnabon whether you talk to Santa or not. You want to leave?”

She nods, hoping he’s not disappointed. “Maybe I’ll talk to him next year.”

“Okay. Let’s go.” His hand is so big that she only takes his first finger, but she clutches it (holding tight) all the way to the food court, where she watches the red, green, and white lights reflect off the high ceiling while her dad orders cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate.

_________________________

She’s been throwing up all night, latest victim of the stomach bug that’s leveled her third grade classroom like a viral tsunami.

He snaps out of his half-doze (guest-room quilt tossed on Kim’s floor when he took over for Teri sometime around three) to the sound of snuffling.

Quiet, stifled sobs.

The room sways a touch when he stands up, but he navigates the two steps to her bed and sits down, shoving aside the stuffed dolphin he’ll have to toss in the washer in the morning. “Why are you crying, sweetie?” Her shiny face is pale in the four-watt glow of her ‘My Little Pony’ night light.

“I’m sorry.” Her hitched whisper is so _small_. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“Don’t worry about it. Tell me what’s wrong.”

A tear dribbles off the side of her face into her sweaty hair. “I’m just so _thirsty_. How much longer?”

Teri’s instructions repeat themselves in his head. _Tiny sips every fifteen minutes. Any more and she’ll just throw it up again._

He glances at the clock on Kim’s desk. “Eight minutes.”

Another hiccuping sob. “That’s so _long_.”

He scoots closer, pushing the comforter away to make room for his body on her twin bed. “It’s not. I promise. I’ll wait with you. You want a story?”

She shakes her head. “I’m too tired.”

“Okay.” He reaches for her hand; it’s clammy and pint-sized inside his. “You’re _sure_ you don’t wanna hear the one about the pink-haired superhero zebra from Mars?”

“Can it be eight minutes?”

“You’re down to seven now."

She tightens her fingers around his pinkie and _almost_ smiles. His shoulders relax.

“Okay. Go!”

_________________________

When she jams her key into the deadbolt the Friday night of the 8th grade Halloween dance, she doesn’t even expect him to be there. He’s been gone for three days, another “assignment,” another whispered fight with her mom when they both thought she was doing her algebra homework.

She curses under her breath when her rain-soaked hands slip and the key won’t turn. Before she can try again, the door opens. Her dad’s standing there, backlit by the entryway lights.

Perfect.

Just _perfect_.

Because clearly, what she needs after a night like this (a night when she spilled fruit punch on her dress ten minutes after the music started, a night when the guy who asked her to the dance wound up making out under the bleachers with her now former best friend) is to be interrogated by her father.

He makes a puzzled face. “Hi. Your mom said Brad was bringing you home at eleven.” His eyes flick to the clock. “It’s not even eight thirty.”

“I took the bus,” she mumbles, brushing past him as she shrugs out of her raincoat. Her brain spins, frantic search for the quickest way to the solitary cocoon of her bedroom.

“Are you okay? What happened to Brad?” Apparently he can’t help the obnoxious emphasis he places on the name, not that she has any interest in defending that asshat at the moment.

“I’m fine. I just wanna change my clothes.” She walks down the hallway, waiting with each squishy step to hear his voice calling her back.

He doesn’t.

She closes the door behind her and listens, expecting footsteps in the hall. All she hears is the squeak of the recliner.

Huh.

He’s surprised the shit out of her.

Half an hour later, when she’s wearing her favorite fuzzy black sweats, cuddled up in the beanbag with her tattered copy of _A Ring of Endless Light_ , she hears a faint tap on the door.

“Yeah?”

He opens it only a little, resting his shoulder on the doorframe. “I made too much popcorn. How about some chess?”

The scent of butter and salt drifts from the kitchen. She puts down the book. “One game. I’m tired.”

“Check,” he says, after over an hour of virtual silence. Any other dad would have made irritating small talk. Any other dad would have let her win. 

As she’s scrutinizing the board, trying to decide if there’s _any_ way out of this, his hand closes over hers, a brief tight squeeze.

“The next dance’ll be better. I swear.” She would respond, but the lump in her throat has multiplied by a factor of ten in the last three seconds. He pretends not to notice. “I’m gonna grab a beer. You want another Coke?”

She nods.

He walks to the fridge, rummaging and clinking bottles much longer than necessary while she swallows past the ache.

_________________________

Weddings are, by definition, supposed to be insane drama-filled affairs replete with last-minute catering disasters and family dysfunction.

When it’s T-minus fifteen minutes and there isn’t so much as an orchid out of place, she can’t help wondering if some horrifying surprise awaits her in the main part of the church.

By some miracle, she has these last few minutes alone. She listens to the floaty faraway piano music drifting through the door Julianne left ajar when she departed in an explosion of leftover hairpins and sculpting spray -- air kiss to keep from smudging Kim’s makeup and a sad, knowing smile. _Why don’t you take five and be by yourself? I’ve got everything under control._

It’s Pachelbel’s ‘Canon in D.’

Her mom loved this song.

Kim studies herself in the full-length mirror -- the smooth satin of her ivory dress, deep plum lipstick Julianne insisted was _perfect_ , careful curls that frame her face while the rest is swept up in a pearl ornament that belonged to her grandmother.

Objectively, she’s beautiful. She knows this.

But what she wants, with a bright aching ferocity that explodes in her chest and courses through her body until she can feel it pulsing in her fingertips, is for her mom and dad to be there to tell her so.

She shuts her eyes and touches the thin skin on the inside of her left arm, empty cold space where her dad’s hand is supposed to be.

She holds her fingers there until they’re warmer.

She doesn’t pray, exactly.

But she does keep her eyes closed, hold her breath, and whisper inside her mind:

_I love you._

_I miss you._

_I understand now._

_I’m sorry_.

_________________________

When all the standard prescription distractions (Sudoku, crosswords, books, TV) stop working, she plays counting games to divert her thoughts.

How many tiles in the ceiling? 48.

How many more swallows before the amazing (because the ‘hospital coffee sucks’ thing is a cliché for a reason) Starbucks triple grande mocha with whipped cream Renee brought her is gone? 9.

How many horizontal threads are on the cuff of her corduroy jacket? 104.

How many times before midnight will her dad show any sign of waking up? 0.

The nurses who shuffle shifts around the clock inevitably ask her, _Don’t you want to get out for a while? We have your cell. You’ll know the second there’s any change._

But Renee and Chloe are the only people she’ll allow to take over, and even then she’s unsettled every second she’s gone, wondering if she’ll miss an eyelid flutter or a hand squeeze.

In her bad moments (usually in the pre-dawn hours when everything is quiet and dark and the only sounds are the swish of night shift Crocs in the hallway and the hum of all the damn machines hooked up to her dad), she hates that she had to become a parent herself before she could grow the hell up enough to understand his decisions.

What she says to the nurses is, “I’m fine. I’ll rest later.”

What she thinks is, _He’s spent his whole life doing this for me, even when I didn’t know it. Now it’s my turn to be the one who’s awake._

So she takes his motionless, freezing hand and presses it between both of hers, rubbing to warm his chilled skin.

_I’m not going anywhere this time, Daddy._

_________________________

He hates every last fucking thing about being in the hospital.

The “food.” The fact that it’s never _dark_. The constant personal space invasion. The smell (alcohol, betadine, and an army of cleaning products that will never win the war against whatever contaminant lurks underneath). The relentless noise -- machines, the PA system, carts squeaking by in the hallway, chattering medical personnel everywhere he turns.

The _hovering_.

Kim, Renee, and Chloe -- one of them in orbit at all times. Sleeping in the chair, flipping through a magazine, telling him to shove it when he begs them to sneak in beer-battered fries, chicken tikka masala, or at least a goddamn milkshake, rearranging his pillow for the fifty-second time because he’s not coordinated enough yet to do it himself.

Reading to him at 2 a.m. when he can’t sleep.

Okay, that part he doesn’t hate.

At all.

His vocal cords remain unpredictable, working when he doesn’t expect them to and failing when he’s confident they won’t.

“Hey,” he croaks one afternoon, when Kim’s sitting cross-legged in the chair beside his bed, pretending to do a crossword but looking vacant, bored out of her mind. “Will you tell me the one about the pink-haired superhero zebra from Mars?”

Love and joy do a wild tango in his chest as he watches her expression change. Her eyes go glisteny, but she bursts out laughing, her entire face a smile. “You remember that?”

He nods.

That smile is the only thing he wanted.

Kim drops the crossword on the table and scoots forward, closer to the bed rail that reminds him of China when he wakes up momentarily disoriented. She lifts his hand into hers and holds it to her cheek, warm strong squeeze.

“Wasn’t the sidekick a raccoon?” he rasps.

“Yeah. Streak. You named him that because he could run so fast he blurred.” Her fingers are still clutching his palm.

His eyes pick that moment to do the thing where they close without his permission.

As he starts to drift, he thinks, _I remember everything_.

Because it’s true.


End file.
